NEWS

ISPs lambast controversial new Digital Economy Act

SPECIAL REPORT

ISPs have voiced their concerns about the Digital Economy Act which was passed into law as part of the pre-election ‘wash up’ at the beginning of April. The Act, which requires ISPs

to take responsibility for polic- ing copyright infringements by end users and introduces measures to disconnect repeat offenders from the Internet, provoked over 20,000 letters of complaint to MPs and was widely criticised for being rushed through parliament. For the com- munications industry, the principle problem is one of cost. A fierce opponent of the Act,

TalkTalk, was quick to respond. Director of Strategy Andrew Heaney wrote on the company blog that he objected to ‘draconian proposals... at a collective cost of hundreds of millions of pounds per year’, and that TalkTalk would refuse to comply with requests to disconnect customers. Adrian Sunderland, CTO at

Griffin Internet, said that B2B ISPs shouldn’t be complacent. For exam- ple, P2P software appears on a large number of business laptops. “I fully expect that this will be just as much of an issue for B2B ISPs as it will be for the consumer ISPs,” he said.

“This last minute and ill-

thought replacement clause could significantly affect sites such as YouTube and many popular social networks due to the high volume of user generated content hosted on the sites. “We continue to believe that

Adrian Sunderland

“This will be just as much of an issue for B2B ISPs as it will be for consumer ISPs”

Griffin’s pricing to the channel would be unlikely to be affected by the Act, he confirmed, but he did expect the cost to the industry to be substantial. “The margins in broadband

are tight enough without service providers having to spend time and money acting as the Internet police, and be put in the awkward position of threatening to cut their own paying customers off. “I can’t think of any other Act

where a service provider is responsi- ble for enforcing a rule in this way. It’s a bit like asking BT to listen in on people’s phone calls and then be responsible for cutting customers

Darren Farnden

“I am astounded over how quickly the Government rushed this bill through”

off that use their phone for illegal purposes.”

Another opponent, Darren

Farnden, Head of Marketing at Entanet, seethed: “I am astounded over how quickly the Government rushed this Bill through the ‘wash- up’ and into Royal Assent despite the industry, the public and several MPs raising concerns over a num- ber of significant clauses. “We were even more amazed

to discover that Clause 18, which will force ISPs to block websites where ‘a substantial proportion of the content accessible at or via each specified online location infringes copyright’ had made it through.

‘guilty until proven innocent’ is the wrong approach to tackling illegal file sharing, that throttling and disconnection are disproportionate penalties for this offence, and that ISPs are not ,and should not be, the Internet police.” Felix Geyer, Head of Broadband at O2, criticised the music and film industry’s role in drawing up the Act, saying they should ‘wake up and smell the coffee’ by working on new business models for a digital age, rather than trying to protect old forms of revenue stream. He wrote in a an open letter to

the creative industries, ‘The real solution to unlawful file sharing is not to send threatening letters or cut people off from the Internet, it is to come up with new products and services that customers want, and at a fair price’. Industry watchdog Ofcom will

take responsibility for enforcing the Act, and has already begun work on a three month process to draw up draft regulations.

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Panasonic’s concession for trade-ins

PANASONIC partners are set to benefit from a 20% concession by trading in any old business phone system for a new Panasonic one. Nor is that all. When patrons trade-in their old phone systems, Panasonic will hand over the tools to evaluate reduction in energy consumption and CO2 footprint. Panasonic says this will enable organisations to show their envi- ronmental RoI derived from trade- ins and upgrades to new TDE or NCP voice platforms with 10 or more IP or digital handsets. Panasonic System Networks

Europe will also reward partner loyalty based on net sales of its products by delivering boxes of Full-HD Camcorders, 42” & 50” NeoPDP plasmas and PanaBoards, Panasonic’s interactive meeting room displays. Dubbed ‘The Brown Goods

Promotion’, purchases valuing £3K upwards will qualify for rewards of Panasonic office AV solutions. Steve Gerrard, Country Mark-

eting Manager, stated: “We’ve brought together the essence of Panasonic’s philosophy on eco ideas and IP telephony solutions along- side office AV in our latest loyalty and scrappage promotions.”

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LTE delays threaten mobile services

EUROPE’S first major auction of radio spectrum suitable for Long Term Evolution (LTE) mobile data services has kicked off in Germany, but analysts have warned that anticipated delays to the UK pro- cess could affect the development of mobile services. The Government appointed independent spectrum broker, Kip Meek, first raised concerns in January that a statutory instrument for handling the auction might be delayed until 2011 as a result of legal concerns from some stake- holders. That now seems certain, since no provisions were passed through parliament before it was dissolved for the general election.

“The current state of play is

now undefined,” says Dr Alistair Brydon of Unwired Insight. “The plan was to hold an auction this year for new spectrum at 800MHz and 2.6GHz spectrum, which could be used to deploy LTE, but the election has now got in the way. It is most likely that the auction will now take place in 2011, but that remains to be seen.” Demand for mobile data result- ed in a 600% increase in web usage from mobile phones in 2009 according to figures from research firm Bango. Dr Brydon noted: “If data traffic does continue to grow the challenge for operators is that it would take significant time to

implement any of the traffic relief measure available. It takes time to get devices containing new tech- nology, like LTE, to customers.” Stephane Daeuble, Motorola’s

Global Product Manager for LTE, says the problem facing mobile operators trying to keep up is that investing in new sites for 3G/HSPA base stations is expensive. While LTE access is fast, an

average connection will run at 10- 20Mbps compared to 1-2Mbps for HSDPA, it’s the potential for expanding capacity that makes it a cost-effective upgrade for MNOs. An LTE base station operating in the same spectrum as HSPA can provide over three times the

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capacity, while one operating in the higher 2.6GHz spectrum has 12 to 20 times the bandwidth. He explains: “The problem is that all the easy sites are taken. The cost of adding a new site to increase capacity can be ten times the cost of the hardware involved, so upgrading existing sites to LTE can be a competitive advantage.” Dr Brydon says that more con- solidation in the UK, following the Orange and T-Mobile merg- er, is likely, but will cause more problems for spectrum allocation. “Many countries already have fewer operators than the UK,” he said. “And this enables both a greater amount of spectrum per operator

and the investment of a greater amount of money into each net- work, which helps to alleviate the capacity challenge.” Bath-based picoChip, a supplier of femtocell technology, says that LTE provides resellers with oppor- tunities beyond the current scope of mobile broadband. “LTE is likely to present a sub- stantial opportunity for the reseller community,” says picoCHip’s Andy Gothard. “It is inherently an over- lay network that will boost net- work capacity and data coverage in a targeted fashion via the use of femtocells. It therefore lends itself to delivery of differentiated value added communications service.” Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56